7 Things I Learned from God

1. A life without Christ is no life at all. So what are you waiting for, Jessica? Go and spread the Good News! Based on this simple truth, how can I live with myself if I chose NOT tell people about Jesus? There is no mission more important than sharing the truth about Christ with the people that we love that need to know Him!

2. I am truly nothing without Christ. It is only through Him that all things become possible, therefore I give Him ALL the glory and honor. Anything that I accomplish in this world is only because God allowed it to happen by giving me the tools. That’s awesome (and humbling).

3. Many Christians will fall short in reaching their full spiritual maturity because they won’t take the time to get all the healing they need. Therefore, I am on a mission to help others know about and achieve “SOZO” (a Greek word meaning “to be made whole through Jesus Christ”).

4. No one accepts the truth without the existence of love. Therefore, I needed to learn how to better RECEIVE HIS LOVE so that I could truly love God, myself and other people with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. When people genuinely know that we love them, care about them, and want them to feel better, then they are more inclined to accept the truth from us.

5. Be authentic and stop people pleasing. This one required that I start looking at my own motives for being involved in certain activities. I also had to learn how to prioritize according to what the Holy Spirit was showing me and set appropriate boundaries with people who tended to take advantage of me. This was difficult because I was addicted to the approval of others. I also was worried about what people thought about me if I acted like my true self. But it was well worth the effort to starting trying to only please God and not people anymore, but boy is that a MIND SHIFT! And you know what the truth is? People actually like me better now that I stopped trying so hard to impress them! (Well, most people... not the ones that are too busy criticizing everyone else so they don't have to look at themselves!)

6. Satan is a much bigger threat to us than we want to admit. We are so quick to blame others for our troubles rather than recognize that it is the ENEMY who feeds us lies and uses other people to steal our joy. The devil patiently schemes to destroy God’s beautiful plans for us. I have learned how to overcome many negative thoughts by lining them up with God’s Word. It is unbelievable what the enemy tries to get us to believe about ourselves so we behave badly!

7. Prayer is so powerful. Especially when spoken out loud in faith. The thought of praying for myself or others out loud used to feel so unbelievably foreign. So awkward. I felt so inadequate trying to think of the right words...and honestly, I even felt kind of stupid doing it. But by learning to "get over myself" mostly by watching others pray who I knew first-hand had insurmountable success, I decided to keep t at it. With lots of practice, courage and of course SEEING THE "FRUIT" (or positive changes in my life...) I kept at it. I recently looked at some old journals of prayers and realized that first of all, God did not care about the words I was using, but what was troubling my heart, mind and soul. Secondly, he loves to ANSWER PRAYERS when we earnestly come to Him to communicate. Prayer is MY PART. By activating the words, I open up the door for God to do His part.